In Other News: Premier Present Swapping

Special Relationship, Special Gifts

People now associate an innocent time when Tony Blair and George W Bush famously used to bath together before making breakfast in the style of Morecambe and Wise with a massive war

Last Tuesday, David Cameron became the first man who looks like a totem pole of himself whittled from ham to fly on Air Force One, the private plane of the President of the United States of America. Perhaps more notably, this makes him the first non-US World Leader ever to have travelled on the world’s most famous aircraft. What an honour. Those who love American team sports but hate icebergs will be delighted to find out that Cameron and Barack Obama made the 70-minute trip to Ohio to go to a basketball game. The media took this to be a continuing display of our two nation’s special relationship. In truth, it would have been stupid for Cameron to have driven there.

The special relationship between the UK and the USA is no longer judged on our shared military commitments. It’s a given that if one of us gets in a fight the other will join in. Politically, economically and militarily we have the same interests. Oh, and we have similar faces. And bellies. And we all like watching Friends.

Instead, these days the robustness of our special relationship is measured by the gifts our leaders give to each other. People now associate an innocent time when Tony Blair and George W Bush famously used to bath together before making breakfast in the style of Morecambe and Wise with a massive war where loads of people died. So a simple gift is the perfect way of demonstrating political friendship without appearing too chummy. Voters don’t like that whole ‘Let’s play golf and then blow some shit up’ approach anymore.

Remember a few years ago when people used to take the piss out of Gordon Brown for being Prime Minister? Our media were falling over themselves to prove that the White House didn’t like Gordon as much as they liked Tony, when in reality both parties were attempting to maintain a casual distance so as not to appear like George and Tony. It became a playground popularity contest. Who was the sexiest Prime Minister? Luckily Gordon lost an election before the Daily Mail could sneak up behind him on the steps of Number 10 and pull down his pants in front of a horrified Michelle Obama, who of course would never have seen an angry, red Scottish scrotum before.

Much was made of the gifts Gordon and Barack swapped on their first meeting. Gordon opted to give the President a desk tidy carved from the timbers of the sister ship of the one his desk in the White House is made from and first edition seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. Which is better than a last minute trip to the garage for a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. In turn, Barack bought Gordon 25 DVDs. Gordon Brown - a man who actually looked like he couldn’t find time to fart let alone watch a film. According to the papers we were being publicly dumped by our American boyfriend.

The gift giving tit-for-tat continued, not unlike a war with no winners, when each leader and their wife bestowed presents upon the other’s children. Gordon and Sarah Brown watched the Obama children excitedly unwrap Topshop dresses with matching necklaces. Meanwhile the Brown boy’s were given small models of the Presidential helicopter Marine One, which had clearly been grabbed from the White House gift shop on the way out. Forget international diplomacy, this is even shit by having Grandma over for Christmas Day standards.

So now, in a bid to prove that we all do really love each other, the Obama administration has let David Cameron get on its plane for a lovely day trip to the basketball game, clearly unaware that in this country our leaders only enjoy sports you can get involved in while sitting on a horse. Have a quick look at the Prime Minister’s face and imagine, in his voice, the words “Mmmm grandma, this is a lovely draught excluder you’ve knitted for me, just what I’ve always wanted, thank you.”